Lionela road to prosperity

This blog is an attempt by myself to chronicle my journey from the top all the way to the bottom of credit card debt and a wrecked financial state back to the path of positive net-worth and financial freedom.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

It almost seems like i took sometime off, i stopped trying, i stopped hustling and started loosing the zeal to get out of my financial rut but i was just laying low trying to plot my next move, life can be rough when one is down and out. I have been looking at ways to generate income on the Internet via tried and true means, but nothing i try seems to pick up i will need to restrategize once more.

On the debt front i am almost down to 50K in total debt with the possibility to pay off 15K to bring it down to 35K but i am having second thoughts, i feel like i should put it to use in a real estate investment since i don't think we will see real estate prices this low again in the longest time, if you were me what will you do?

I am on the verge of heading back to school to get an MBA in finance, this will definitely put my finances in dire straits again since i want to pay for the tuition in cash but i do see it as good debt worth accumulating for the bigger picture later on.

I have also put my classic 94 Mercedes on sale via craigslist in a bid to raise some much needed cash and i am also on the watch out for viable business ventures.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

The days of living above my means and supplementing my income via my IRA withdrawals is long gone as my financial life went bust over the labor day weekend, never before will i have ever thought that the day will come when i will hit financial pavement. The labor day weekend culminated in financial hell for me and my family, a weekend that should have been spent on a family road trip ended up being spent indoors at home due to my financial situation.

Saturday 9/5 started out with our cable , phone and Internet service from Comcast being cut off and then our cell phone was also cut off on Monday 9/7, normally i am able to call them up and make the necessary payments to get the service back on but not this time, since i had no money available in any of my immediate accounts and to top things off, all but one of my cards was declined every time i tried to use them.

This is clearly the bottom that i had dreaded for so long, never again i said to myself, from now on i will make strides to live below my means, i will make strides to generate monthly income besides my regular income, i will strive to restore my financial self and dignity through investments.

I will provide an update of my status in terms of paying down my debt in the coming week.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Alot has been happening in my financial recovery plan, i am making progress but at the expense of paying my bills on time, i have tried very hard to stay on schedule and pay them on time but the payoff that i did on American express deliquent account threw me off of my whole regimen. It is so funny how once i am thrown off my economic plan it takes me twice as hard and more money to recover, but i am steadfast in my resolve to be debt free (minus student loan and Mortgage obligations) going into 2011.

On another note, i am considering going back to School to get a doctorate or MBA degree in either financial engineering or management information systems, i do need to accquire some new higher-level skills for the second leg of my career journey which i am hoping will see me being self sufficient entrepreneur running my own Software Quality Assurance/Testing Consultancy, only time will tell.

I am happy to say that as off the end of this month i will be tracking at approximately 56K in debt down from 80K almost 2 years ago, i am hoping that i will finish the year around 40 - 45K in debt that is my goal for this year

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Today i found myself hitting the bottom, i have never being so broke that i don't even know how i will get funds to purchase my train tickets to the office in the next couple of days. I have to figure out my financial plan, because i can't continue living like this.I never thought that i will ever find myself in this position where my account is actually negative and i can't afford to buy anything. I made a promise to myself never to be in this position and i will definitely get to a positive net-worth in the next few years. I will provide some new updates to my financial plan soon as i made some progress in the last month.

Check out the article below written by myself and published at ehow.com

In the state of economy with unemployment hovering around 8.9%, looking for a job not only guarantees little or no response or call back, but if you got a call back you will be competing with a size able amount of prospects. What is a job hunter to do?

At any time in history of America, there are always sectors of the economy doing well while other sectors maybe languishing, now is not an exception. Companies that are differentiating themselves in their industry and providing much needed services as well as show means of attaining profitability are the ones that have the funds or are getting the funds needed to operate effectively and efficiently and moreover are the ones aggressively looking to expand in different directions with the much needed manpower and expertise in terms of new hires. In other words the new jobs are being created by startup that are currently being funded, in the process of being funded or currently profitable and looking to expand aggressively to take make share.In looking at some venture funds website, one can still see that they are investing in promising startup and these start-ups are then going out and hiring the needed expertise to deliver on their promise to their owners (financial backers).Job web sites like monster.com, hotjobs.com, dice.com still provide thousands of listings which may include jobs from these start-ups but there is a higher chance that companies directly listing there openings in startup jobs specific web sites are looking to aggressively fill those positions and also these start-up jobs specific website are not really as well known as the popular site such as monster, hot jobs and dice.

For the job hunter that doesn’t mind grunting it out and possibly enjoying the fruits of their labor at a later time if the company ends up going public might be well suited to concentrate their jobs search at the following start-up jobs specific or related sites.http://www.ventureloop.comhttp://www.startuphire.comhttp://www.startuply.comhttp://www.leavewallstreetjoinastartup.com/ (Niche site)

So finally on 7/7/09 a significant amount of money came out of my account towards my American express bill hopefully to close out that account for good, i will see what happens when i get my next bill, the amount that was debited out of my account ended up putting my account in the negative due to the bad timing on the part of the collection agency, i can already smell the overdraft fees on this one, Chase has definitely made a killing over the last 12 months on my account with these overdraft fees. It is ironic that today's paper headlines read something like ...Banks are getting rich on overdraft fees, i can definitely attest to that.I will definitely pull through on this, i hope this is the trigger i need to cut down on some more debt accounts. I will provide some more status on this at the end of the month.On a sad note, i no longer have any money to pay my other bills till my next check which will be less anything that is negative in my account, My Cell phone is now cut due to no payment and wont get turned on till i can pay, what a life, i may have to dip into my personal IRA again to get myself out of this.

On a different note, i noticed on my way in to the office that there is a large proportionate number of women that are pregnant, i guess the myth is true, that more women get pregnant at times of recession. It is unbelievable the human spirit to survive and thrive.